I Will Not Submit
by missCrowne
Summary: This is Lenina's story: a girl without emotions, who fell in love anyway.
1. That awful lighthouse

_A/N: After John kills himself at the lighthouse, Lenina is left by herself. This is her story. _

* * *

_"I will not submit!" _

Slowly I woke up. The floor was hard and wet and the air was cold and silent. I was definitely not in my bedroom. With my eyes shut I searched my body for a pack of Soma. I didn't have any. A voice kept ringing in my ears. It was annoying and I didn't know what to do about it.

_"I will not submit!" _

I kept hearing it, but it wasn't like hypnopaedic tapes. It was as if it came from my own mind. The thought of my own mind producing such overwhelming thoughts, made me scared. I craved Soma more than ever. I knew the only way to get it, was to get up and go home. So, that's what I did. I opened my eyes and I stood up. Then I noticed the lighthouse. I recognized the lighthouse. A strange burning sensation covered my chest, as if I had eaten something rotten. The feeling was all consuming.

_John._

John was gone. I had tried to talk to him. Tried to explain to him how our world works. But his brain didn't seem to work the same as mine. He hit me. And then he had sex with me. I thought that finally he understood. But then he ran and he shouted.

_"I will not submit!"_

And then he was gone. He died and I was pretty sure it wasn't his time to go yet. _Ford._ I didn't understand any of this. I never understood John. But it was as if his words invaded my brain. And now, I didn't understand myself. _Soma._ I needed Soma. Soma would fix everything. I would forget about all these dreadful ideas and be cheerful. I needed to find Fanny. She'd know what to do and she wouldn't tell on me and my non-conformist thought to the new director, or Ford knows, the World Controller. She'd help. She'd have Soma.

Slowly I moved my feet in the muddy ground. They were heavy. Not heavy because there was mud sticking to my shoes, but heavy on the inside. Maybe I needed a pregnancy substitute. Fanny had had one. She had physical discomforts too. Maybe this was the same.

Where had everyone gone? Last night the place was crowded with people. Now, they had all left. Why was I still here? John was going to be turned into vosporous. Good for him. There was nothing here anymore. No other people. No fun. Why was I here? I tried to walk faster. Away from this awful place. I couldn't walk faster. My legs were weak.

Where was Bernard? Why didn't he help? He knew how strange John was. He should have done something. To help John. Or at the very least, to help me. I had realized long ago that Bernard was a selfish person. A selfish person in the World State was almost unheard of, but he was. He took John, he brought him to London to keep his job. It was selfish and it was stupid. Epsilon stupid. I had always defended Bernard, but he wasn't a good citizen. Maybe Fanny was right. Maybe it was the alcohol in his blood surrogate.

Why wasn't the rotting sensation going away? Why was John's voice still in my ear? I felt to check for chips. There weren't any. After a long walk I finally saw a lady. She was a Gamma, but I had no choice, I had to ask her.  
"Miss, do you hear that voice?"  
The woman looked at me strangely. Of course she did, she was a Gamma.

I asked again, now slower. "Miss. Do. You. Hear. That. Voice?"  
She shook her head.  
"No." She kept looking at me. "You sure you're a Beta?"  
I nodded and confirmed the woman's silly question.  
"Of course I'm a Beta."

Now I recognized the look. It was the way Fanny looked at Bernard. It was the way everyone looked at Bernard. This Gamma woman thought I was badly conditioned. I ran. I ran away, because I wasn't quite sure I wasn't badly conditioned.


	2. My friends, my friends

_"I will not submit!"_

Why was I hearing this voice? Why was my body in so much discomfort? Finally I saw more and more citizens. I wasn't alone anymore. I felt lighter immediately. I stepped into the first Rocket Roadster that had a spot free and an hour later, I was back in London. Far away from that awful lighthouse. I walked to Fanny's apartment and knocked on the door. She opened the door quickly. Maybe she was expecting someone?

"Ford, Lenina!" She pulled me into her house and shut the door.  
"You look horrible!" Fanny was shouting. She had been concerned with me before. This was different. This time I was afraid she might be right. She handed me a mirror. The sight of my own reflection frightened me. I indeed looked horrible. My face had unnatural colors. My hair wasn't neatly in a bun. My clothes were wrinkled and my eyes.. they seemed watered. I'd had eyes like this once before. When I was in Bernard's apartment after John had threatened me. I tossed away the mirror.

"Fanny, I need Soma!"  
Fanny came back with a pack and I took three. One cubic centimeter cures ten gloomy sentiment.  
"You need to go Lenina."  
The Soma hadn't taken effect yet, and Fanny was already sending me away. What was wrong with her? Why did she want to be alone? That didn't make any sense. Maybe she was joking. I stayed seated.  
"Lenina." She demanded. I looked at her face. Hers looked quite normal. Was I really too ugly for her to look at? I was sure the Soma would take effect soon, and she could look at me again. It wasn't as if I looked like one of those awful Epsilons.  
"I'll come back when I look better." I said.

Next to the rotten sensation, there was know a sudden feeling of a insect sting in my ribs. I had felt that once, when I was in the Savage reservation. But that had been a small bug. This was a giant bug, stinging me inside my body.  
Why wasn't the Soma working yet? Maybe I should see a doctor?  
"You cannot come back!" Fanny shouted.  
_I didn't understand._  
"I don't understand."  
"Your non-conformity is putting me in a harmful position. I'm afraid I cannot be seen with you anymore."

_"Your non-conformity"_

Fanny thought I was a non-conformist. I wasn't. I was just having some physical discomforts, that's all. I had done nothing wrong. Sure, I had dated Bernard, who had shown his non-conformity, but I had dated plenty of other men too. Besides, shouldn't my efforts to get through to Bernard be rewarded, instead of despised.  
"Fanny! I'm not a non-conformist."  
She didn't speak to me anymore. She took my arm and let me out the door. Again, I was alone. I remembered how Bernard had told John that even amongst others, he was always alone. I finally understood what he meant.

It seemed as though I didn't quite understand the world around me anymore. As if they we were all on a different frequency than I was. Like I was a different caste all together. Not a Beta anymore, but something else entirely. Maybe I could find Henry. He lived close to Fanny. I knocked on his door. He opened and closed it in the span of a second. I guess he too had heard of my _non-conformity. _


	3. My fordship

_"I will not submit!" _

"What was it you would not submit to?" I shouted. I looked up to the sky, for a split second thinking John's minerals were in the air around me and he was listening to me. Watching me. I felt a banging in my chest. The rotten part started beating like the Savages' drums. It was so loud I couldn't hear anything else. Why hadn't Fanny given me a whole pack of Soma? Maybe I could go to the doctor. Maybe he could send me to the hospital. Maybe I could die sooner.  
_So I could be with John.  
_The beating stopped. As quickly as it started, it just stopped and it was silent. For the first time in years I consciously noticed the music that was playing in the air. No matter how much Soma I had taken in the past, I had never seen colors so bright. It hurt my eyes. I closed them, trying to give the Soma time to bring my body back in order. Instead, two hands grabbed my arms.

I protested, but they reminded me not to disrupt the society, so I stopped. They put me in a car. I kept my eyes shot. I figured it was better not to be blinded by all the colors, and not to show them the eyes that apparently were so ugly they scared off Fanny. The car stopped and the hands dragged me out again. Everything about this place felt cold. I couldn't resist the desire to see this place. When I opened my eyes, everything was white. _Alpha. _The sleeves of the two hands were white. The people were white. The floor was white. The halls were white. The air was white. The room I entered next showed more white and Mustapha Mond.  
Last time I saw him was in the trainee class. He didn't look at me then. He looked at me now, but not the way guys usually looked at me. He looked at me the way people looked at Bernard. The way Fanny looked at me.

"You are friends with Bernard Marx, correct?"  
"I was, yes."  
"Were you aware of his non-conformity?"  
"I had heard about it."  
"Did you believe it?"  
"I didn't."  
"And now?"

"I do now."

The Controller walked around and stopped in front of me. He looked at me again. Was he disgusted by my eyes? I was sure he was.

"What was your relation with the Savage?"

_John.  
"I love you more than anything in the world."_

There it was again. His voice in my ears. His face in my eyes. His thoughts in my brain.

"You knew him, correct?" I heard the controller's voice through the words of John.  
"Yes." I knew him. I didn't want to be here anymore. I turned around and tried to open the door, but it was locked. I was in a socially undesirable situation, and I could not get out of it.  
"What was your relation with the Savage?"  
"I liked him. I'm not selective."  
"Were you at the lighthouse?" _That awful lighthouse.  
_"Yes."  
The controller sighted. I didn't know why. I had said nothing wrong. Half of London was at the lighthouse to laugh at the savage. Half of London was entertained. _Not me. _Why had I been at that lighthouse? Why was this rotten sensation not going away? The only thing I wanted that night was for John to hold me. But then why did I feel so uncomfortable when he finally took me? I didn't understand why people thought it was so funny, I thought it was dreadful. Everything about that night at that awful lighthouse was dreadful. I should have taken Soma with me that night. Why hadn't I? It was on my table, I could have easily taken in it with me, but I hadn't. I had done something wrong and the Controller knew it too.

"Miss Crowne, I'm warning you. Emotions are ugly and we do not allow them in this beautiful world state."

_Emotions._

No. Emotions were abolished. That's why we had Soma. I always took Soma. I was a model citizen. Except I hadn't taken Soma. Not when I went to see John at the lighthouse. Not when I went to sleep one night and dreamt of him. Not a Soma-dream, but a dream created by my own mind. I was thinking my own thoughts, dreaming my own dreams, feeling my own.. _emotions._ And John was in every single one of them. He was in my flesh, my bones, my veins and my mind.

"There is no place for individuality, non-conformity and love here. Bernard Marx and his friend, Helmholz Watson, failed to understand this. So they were exiled. Mr. Savage"

_John._

_"_ refused to conform to our ideas and he chose to die. You, miss Crowne, however, are still at risk of poisoning our World State."

No. I would never poison the World State. I was a little unwell, that was all. I would go on Soma holiday, and everything would be peachy.

"I would never do such a thing."  
"I was told differently."  
"You were told wrong."

There was an eerie silence. It didn't resemble the silence at the savage reservation or the lighthouse. There was no wind here, no beasts, _no John._

"Miss Crowne, I feel you are a grave danger to society. Therefore, you will be send to the Falklands, where you will spend the rest of your time with like-minded _individuals."_

That word made me want to vomit. I had heard Bernard say it once before. He wanted to be _an individual_. But I wasn't like him. I wanted to be part of this society. I was a part of it. That was the truth. Except, apparently, that was just my truth. It wasn't Fanny's, it wasn't Henry's and it wasn't the Controller's. I just had to show them I could change back to the Lenina Crowne I used to be: a cell in the social body, a drop in the ocean.


	4. Out of control

"I am not an individual."

It required great effort for me to form that sentence. Just the hearing word _individual _made me sick, let alone speak it.

"Miss Crowne, this is not a discussion."  
"But I take Soma, I do my job, I go to solidarity service, I've had plently of dates."  
I noticed I was talking with a different intensity than normal. My thoughts weren't carefully shaped into words, they were the words now. Just like when I told John I liked him, and when I told Fanny to shut up.  
"Miss Crowne."  
The Controller's threatening tone of voice, didn't stop my train of thoughts, _my_ thoughts, to stop from falling from my lips into the sterile air.  
"I do everything society asks of me, even when that meant losing John. I wanted to teach him how our community works, I wanted him to be with me, they way everyone belongs to everyone else. But he didn't get it. He wouldn't understand, and neither did Bernard."  
"Miss Crowne."  
"By talking to them, trying to convince them of their wrong doings, they invaded my thoughts. Their unconformity is conditioned into my thoughts. I tried, my Fordship. I tried. And I can keep trying to get it out. To get John out."  
"Miss Crowne!"

I felt the hands around my arm again. I was pulled back. I hadn't even noticed I had approached the Controller. I was too aware of my breathing. It had taken hold of my ribs, my chest and my throat. I even felt it in my left eyebrow. Except for my breathing, it went quiet again. It was as If my voice still rang through the room. When the Controller finally spoke, his voice was cold, almost a whisper. It sounded as if he was carefully constructing every word.  
"Miss Crowne, do you know what love is?"

_Love. _

I had heard the word being used before. Usually, it was used without any meaning. Merely as an example of historical phenomena that were now long forgotten. The only person that had used it differently was John. I liked John, John _loved _me. I didn't know the meaning then, but I think John taught me. It felt almost like lying, when I'd say I liked him. Being with John was always different then with anyone else. I liked everyone, but John was different. The way he spoke of _love, _the way he looked at me, the way he slightly touched me: those moments had felt like the truth. Even if I didn't understand it. John knew what love was, and I was afraid I did too.

"Miss Crowne."  
I nodded, because I wasn't sure what was harder: telling the truth or lying.  
The World Controller nodded his head too. A sign that it was time to take me away.

I realized it was over. My time as a World State citizen was up. I felt the way I figured John had felt when he pushed me to the floor and screamed. I felt out of control and besides myself. My limps tried to find things to hit, a way to get them off me. To get back to being me. But they couldn't find anything to hit, just cold sterile air. I was pulled away into the hall, where all I could see was white. I was dragged into a helicopter and then the quiet was replaced by the sounds of the rotary wings lifting us into the air. My left hand was cuffed to the bench I was sitting on, the rest of me was now free to move, but I was frozen still.

I remembered the movie John and I went to on our date, _Five Men and A Helicopter. _I thought it was amazing then, but now I really couldn't figure out why I had ever thought that. John had always hated it, the way John hated everything. John hated everything about the World State, except the music and me. I liked everything about the World State, I had been a part of it. I liked the Soma, the men, the work, the food and the popularity. Everything was being taken away from me, all because of _love._ All because John hated everything, but me.


	5. All is well

_A/N: Slaidey, thank you so much for your kind review. I'm really happy someone is reading this. This story is dear to my heart and I'm glad you liked what you read so far. I hope you might continue reading and tell me what you think.  
__

When the helicopter landed and the roaring of the rotary wings stopped, the voices in my head turned louder. It wasn't just John now, it was Bernard, Henry, Fanny, the Gamma woman, the Director. I felt the palms of my hands getting wet, and a small drop of sweat formed on my forehead as if I had just taken a hot bath. Where were they taking me? I kept seeing those faces. Was this Peking? I remembered laughing with Fanny about the Director. About how his mistakes had cost him to be send to Peking. I'd thought it was funny, I'd thought it was right. He had been a threat to society. But now I felt nauseous thinking about that moment. I felt apologetic. Now I was the one being send away. I was the one people at home were laughing at.

_Home._

I wasn't sure I knew what that meant anymore. I was never to return to the World State, I knew that. So, was that still my home? I guessed not. I was now to share a home with _like-minded individuals, _as the World Controller put it. I found that a confusing term. Citizens of the World State were like-minded. Individuals weren't, that's a given. Individuals had thoughts and emotions. They were the opposite of everything that was right in the world. And now I was believed to be one of them.

_Thoughts and emotions._

I was afraid. Everything I was _feeling _was new and I didn't know what it was and I didn't know what to do about it, and it was all John's fault. From inside something shouted and other voices forced it back. As if little parts of me were talking to each other. Arguing about whether or not I had thoughts and emotions. Whether or not to admit I had thoughts and emotions. But I knew. Parts of me wanted to shout that it wasn't true, but I knew it was.  
I wasn't sure whether that made it more or less scary to walk into a world of individuals. The idea of being one of them was terrifying and awful, but the idea of being alone among them was even worse.

The doors of the chopper opened and cold air hit my face. There was wind everywhere. There was so much wind it made a noise quite similar to the noise vacuum dust disposer hydrants makes when you put your ear next to it. The wind was blowing the sand everywhere, and I couldn't see anything. I felt how cold fingers uncuffed my left hand. I could feel how the cold metal left my wrist, but I could still feel the cold shape pressed into my skin. I rubbed my wrist with my much warmer right hand, but it didn't help. Two big strong hands pressed against my back and with one smooth hard motion pushed me out of the chopper. I wasn't prepared for that sudden forward motion and fell heard first into the sand.  
I stayed down, because I was afraid of what would happen if I'd move. There was sand and wind anywhere, and I knew there might be _individuals _waiting for me, when I would finally manage to see. I calculated that seeing this place wasn't worth risking my eye sight and physical health for.

"Good luck Lenina. Ford's in his Flivver." I heard a voice barely carrying over the wind. Only then I recognized the voice and realized that I'd had sex with one of the men in the chopper. I thought about John, and how he only ever wanted to have sex with one person. And here I was. In the sand, barely remembering a man I had shared the bed with, because there had been so many.  
"_All is well with the world." _I replied to the familiar man, but I wasn't truthful. I was purposely shaping my sentence as a lie, and I was thankful for the wind to carry the words away from the chopper so that the man would never hear them.

Then, the doors of the chopper were slammed shut. I heard the engine of the chopper firing up and the rotating wings started spinning again. The noises were all consuming and the wind slammed into my body which such force, I wasn't sure I'd still be in one piece if the noise ever stopped. Now it was like I wasn't even really there. I was just a body covered in sand waiting for the noise to subdue.

It did. The noise subdued, but the wind kept ringing in my ears. I felt sand everywhere. Every part of my body was hurting. Standing up didn't seem like a possibility. I heard voices, but I wasn't sure if the voices were on my head or above the sand, but replying to either option seemed useless and impossible. I felt my heart hit my ribs and my lungs were shrinking as I tried to catch the air between the grains of sand. I failed and the sand got in my nose, mouth and windpipe. I coughed and felt I was choking. I had heard a story about a Beta minus woman who had gotten stuck when getting a mud bad. The mud got into her lungs and she died. I was getting sand in my lungs. I knew I'd choke and die if I didn't move.

_Just like John had._

If I'd turn around I'd get into a world with too much wind and only individuals. If I'd die, it would all be over.

_Maybe I'd see John again._

So I didn't turn. I stayed down, covered in sand.


End file.
